Shuffle Time is Money

*Below is an update*

Sick of feeding candy to Wolverine in order to restore a mere 50 HP while Dr. Robotnik tries to take over the Mushroom Kingdom with puyos and gems that release magical attacks when lined up? This shit makes more sense than flinging bird torsos at Jinga blocks and pork balls, but not more sense than remastering Krazy Kreatures for my 3DS, so why isn't that a thing? At least Tetris Attack the handheld. No? I'll settle for Pokemon Puzzle League. Still no? Oh, there's Trozei, but that's kinda boring with how every stage feels the same, and you could beat it while drunk off your ass. It's lack of challenge fits right in with the difficulty of most other Pokemon games that don't include "Stadium" or "Colosseum" in the title. Then again, those two were not so much difficult as they were outright cheap and annoying. I know Hard Mode is supposed to be hard, but that doesn't mean moves like Body Slam should come with a 100% chance status effect against my team, while my own attacks have an increased chance of missing. When a Nidoking can miraculously manhandle my Starmie with minimal damage, that's a justifiable reason to call bullshit on the whole thing, isn't it?

After purchasing my handy dandy New 3DS XL, I went right back to my old 3DS to play Nintendo's newest step towards becoming a soulless gaming company, Pokemon Shuffle. Shuffle is basically Trozei, but it's not mind-numbingly simple. If it was, what excuse would there be to purchase jewels with my money? Didn't know you could purchase jewels with real cash? Perhaps you merely forgot. No worries there, because Shuffle will remind you after every game with tips like, "You can earn coins by playing the game, or by using jewels," or "If you run out of jewels, buy more in the Nintendo eShop," and, "You're never gonna catch'em all with a proper S ranking if you don't start purchasing all the expensive power-ups with the coins and jewels that you get from the eShop, you cheap bastard!" To put the price of items into perspective, one can earn 100 coins from completing a standard puzzle, or 300 from an expert puzzle, the first time. After that, it's only 30 coins. The exceptions to this involve a wealthy Meowth who is available during the weekends, along with the standard Meowth stage that allows for a much smaller reward, but, hey, it's better than the chump change you're getting otherwise. Lastly, your best opportunity comes with the daily check-in bonus of 500 coins (1000 every 10 days). So with all these small lumps of cash, what can a player buy to improve his chances of catching a Pokemon?

Thankfully, there are many stages with only one or two of these power-ups available, because using something like a disruption delay or a complexity -1 will actually do nothing against certain Pokemon.

Scary times are ahead.

Ok, so it has already been established by numerous others that this is a freemium title, and the most obvious flaw here is going to be the game's reliance upon microtransactions, but Shuffle, for the most part, is actually fun to play. There are a few stages that blantantly demand your coins, but those frustrations are the minority.

Ermahgerd, it's teh legundayre Merptwo!

As one can see, it's your standard match 3 puzzle game with Pokemon mechanics (and asshole-ish limiters) mixed in. Playing a stage requires the use of one heart, and each heart takes 30 minutes to replenish. There's a five-heart limit for freebies, but that shouldn't surprise anyone. A team for each stage consists of four critters (sometimes three) with one potential mega evolution among them. Only the first Pokemon in the group can mega evolve, and one must have the stone to do it. These are won through defeating the mega evolution trainers that a player will periodically battle against, while a few are won through competitve online play. The most recent one (as of this post) was for Blastoisinite. The top 20000 scores earned one, while the rest received a single jewel. That doesn't sound too difficult, does it? There were over 196,000 participates for that event. I don't know how I actually managed to win one for my Blastoise.

When choosing Pokemon, there is a convenient button to "Optimize" your team. This takes type and power into consideration, but not abilities.

Attack Power and a Mega Evolution doesn't amount to much if the stage is only six turns in length and littered with disruptions. Disruptions, by the way, can take the forms of breakable blocks, ice, unbreakable blocks, black clouds, and garbage Pokemon, which are usually ineffective against your target. While most stages are set by a specific number of moves, the expert stages help to mix things up by allowing the player to move Pokemon anywhere he wants, and as many times as he wants, within a time limit. The sooner you defeat a Pokemon, the higher your ranking. and a higher rank means a higher catching percentage.

Unfortunately, this usually doesn't help as much as it should. Even if a player manages to successfully complete a stage with a perfect selection of moves, the chances of capture are STILL going to be below 50% for just about anything worth having. What Shuffle offers in these situations is the Great Ball. For 2500 coins, you can double your odds of catching that Merptwo that the game constantly reminds you about, because it would be a super effective teammate to have against that Manutz you've struggled to beat, but what good is doubling 15%? Who really wants to piss away that many coins for less than a coin flip's chance of success? Shame on you, Nintendo. Shame. *wags finger*

For what it's worth, Pokemon Shuffle is a wonderful break from playing an actual game on the 3DS. Nintendo keeps it fresh with daily/weekly events, and the music is catchy. It's still freemium, of course, and the limitations turn it into shit, but it's delightful shit!

Delightfully... evil... shit.

Updated (9-8-15)

Not surprisingly, higher levels are bloated with health, including the adorably worthless catches, like Mime Jr. and Starly. Even with a full team of max-leveled monsters doling out super effective attacks, each hit has minimal effect. It's disheartening to watch a Gothita shrug off shots from a Mega Gengar. To add insult, disruptions are exceptionally precise. If reducing your best offense to little more than chip damage isn't enough, imagine using a turn or two to set up a decent combo only to watch it immediately turn to shit at that moment. This sort of thing completely ruins the puzzle mechanic, and being reminded that one should spend money to prevent this... but I would like to make a correction.

I've been pointing my Wright finger in the wrong direction. While the company may have a large chunk of stock (I read something about it being a third), Nintendo does not actually own Pokemon. It's similar to when they were tied together with Rare and its games, until Microsoft took over. Pokemon Shuffle is not Nintendo's product. It belongs to The Pokemon Company, an affiliate, not a subsidiary, of Nintendo. *In other words, Big N doesn't call the shots.* I aplogize for blaming Nintendo directly. Thank you for not turning into every other major gaming developer... yet. (Hopefully never.)

Every day's great in Golden 4!

Prior to my arrival, I was greeted by a goblin crackhead and his bitch who talked to me about cards, relationships, and how proud he is to be, and I quote, "tapping dat sweet piece of ass." Margaret then blushed, mumbled something about a nose job, and, before both could undress, I woke up on the train in a cold sweat realizing I had wet myself during the nightmare. Fortunately, the only two to see me were a sword-wielding Hey, Arnold! who couldn't form a single insulting word to respond with, but snickered enough for me to understand what he wanted to say, and a blue cat who stood directly in front of me and stared into my soul with a giant pair of frightening, lifeless eyes. His view slowly moved downward to the stain on my pants, and the cat promptly asked, "Are you a boy or a girl?" Considering my previous ride in Japan involved acid rain, zombie leech swarms, and a coal-powered robot with an odd obsession for credit cards, I can't say that the experience was all that surprising. Plus, who doesn't love riding with a math panda? ...especially when she is consumed by the leeches.

Moments after reaching my destination, I quickly left with my uncle and his daughter, stopping only for a moment to tell some bitch to give me back my paper, to visit one of the many popular sites of Inaba, the gas station. I found it odd that one of the employees actually came over to chat and even shook my hand. So, there you all go. Foreshadowing. It's too obvious to be a spoiler, because who would really believe a worthless background character would run up to me and waste time with small talk otherwise? What one should be asking is, "Who is this final boss sort of person," and, "What kind of last battle role will she play in the near future?" After shaking hands with the human form of Izanami, I suddenly became dizzy and pissed my pants again. This is a recurring trend, so I figured it was best to buy as much armor and as many uniforms to change into throughout the trip.

Having unpacked my stuff, I was given the options to stare at the calendar and go to sleep. So I stared, then I went upstairs to further stare at another calendar. I have two calendars. Exausted from staring and peeing, I collapsed in my bed and dreamt about a shadow clone of myself, along with a talking ostrich and an army of mothers searching for a beetle that reeked of butt gas. It's what every Japanese boy dreams about: a normal life.

Soon after I left the house to start my first day of school, my life completely changed. No, literally. Every day was chopped into three periods: Morning, After School, and Evening. No matter what I wanted to do (go out for lunch, talk to a friend, poop), it would take several hours to do it, especially when it came to walking through that the front door. I once left my History book on the kitchen table, turned back to get it before school started, and Nanako was already in the kitchen preparing dinner. Multitasking be damned, I suppose, but as long as I'm not pressured to associate with too many individuals, I should be ok 'til next Spring...

Well... fuckles.

Disregarding the homeroom teacher (presumably a reject from the Bleach series), I was greeted by two attractive girls of opposing stock personalities who offered to show me around the area. After a boring conversation about pots and clothes, we agreed on a ménage à trois at the Amagi Inn. I think the girl in the red (Yukiko) owns the place, or something like that. I really wasn't paying attention to what was said, because I was preoccupied with staring at the green one (Chie) most of the time. They mentioned how this was the one notable thing about the town, which explains why so many people were friendly to me. Before I could indulge in the glory of Inaba, however, I was stopped by my uncle and a group of onlookers being held back by the local police. A crooked antenna was driving everyone crazy and, from what I was told, a woman died trying to fix it.

Uh, what are you talking about? I saw the body before you did during the opening video. Dumbass.

Having killed the mood (only for them, of course), we all went our separate ways. Nanako sang the Junes slogan again, and I backhanded her for it. Then we went to bed.

The next day, another person with a unique portrait greeted me at school, so he's instantly significant. Yukiko had to go back to the inn, leaving me with Chie and this new guy, Yosuke. Having learned about the most notable aspect of Inaba yesterday, I realized this group was not going to work out... too much Y... so I tried to change the topic, but Chie went into a conversation about soulmates, then looked at Yosuke and myself, and, when I saw a smile form on Yosuke's face, it was time to go. The grilled steak made me sick, too. After I was done in the bathroom, I decided to lie down and watch some TV. The screen was dirty, so I got out of bed to wipe it off and my hand went right through it. I though, "This was exactly what I was looking for!" I now had the perfect excuse for tomorrow: "Soulmates? with you and Yosuke? No, no, no, no, no. We need to figure out how my television developed a llamalike taste for human hands." The excuse worked on one of them, at least. Chie seemed set on dropping the matter, but Yosuke...

He's got other plans for  us  me.

My next idea was a bit more drastic. Pretending to give a shit about him, I led Yosuke to believe that if he impressed me with his job at Junes, we could become the closest of friends. The bestest of buddies. We could be like Banjo and Kazooie, or Link and Navi... or whatever. I then shoved his sorry ass into the largest television screen within the electronics department and headed back to the food court to meet up with Chie. Exhibiting the trademark patience commonly associated with a teenager sporting Moe Howard's signature bowl cut during his later years as the bassist for the Ramones, I returned to our table to find splatterings of blood, flesh, and A-1 sauce all over the place. Realizing a morbidly obese future for this girl, I decided to go after Yosuke, hoping to use him in the future as a cockblock against this green Basculin while I turned my attention towards wooing her red, giggly counterpart.

Obvious Call of Duty reference.

It took a while, but I eventually found Yosuke sulking in one of the hacked areas of the Archives stage. After listening to him whine for roughly five minutes about one of his opponents using Oddjob, I decided to corrupt the rest of the match by leaving everyone else in an eternal state of Geddan. Satisfied with the results, Yosuke finally agreed to accompany me back to our world. This, however, proved itself to be more difficult than we had anticipated. Fortunately, we ran into one of the local bearman dolls who gladly provided us with directions soon after we tied him to a chair and forced him to watch us dance to the tune of Stuck in the Middle with You. I can only assume the intense fear in his eyes was a direct result of the song itself, further solidifying my belief that the '70s is, indeed, considered to be the worst decade for music within the last thirty years. Soon after we got home, Yosuke and I hopped online and played Splatoon together on our Nokia 3DFXL 2600s until it was time to sleep.

The next day, another woman was hanging upside down from an antenna. She was too high for anyone to spot the color of her panties, so no one cared. After school, we decided to go back to the other world in hopes of finding some answers. Moments after we arrived, the same bearman doll pointed one of his claws in our direction, screamed, "OBJECTION!" and proceeded to accuse us of murdering what's her face... dumb bitch. Fortunately, Yosuke and I had already prepared an opening statement for our defense. We beat him in the face with golf clubs until our arms were too tired to continue, then we kicked him repeatedly. After a few minutes, he surrendered two pairs of goggles. They did nothing, so we kicked him a few more times and spat on his face.

Remember, it's impolite to point at others.

Leaving the bear to rot, Yosuke and I explored a bit and discovered a shopping center filled with flying logos of the Rolling Stones. It wasn't long before we were spotted, surrounded, and assaulted with Fool To Cry.While Yosuke begged them for death, thoughts of the Electriclarryland cover came to mind as I searched my pockets for a well-sharpened pencil. When it seemed as if all hope was lost, the song ended, and the Jaggergobs floated away. Afterwards, I turned a tarot card into Izanagi. I would have done it sooner, but I didn't have a spirit monster in my hand to banish.

While investigating the shopping center, we came upon somebody who looked just like a worthless piece of shit Yosuke.

And with that, we returned home. Riveting stuff, no?

Jiraiya: "What about me?"

Along the way, I saw Yukiko sitting at the picnic table near the flood plain. I asked her, "Sex?" She responded with, "It's that time of the month for me," then, after a brief pause, she clarified with, "No." Nanako and I watched the news, saw Yukiko being interviewed, washed the dishes, and unlocked a screen specifically to check on my status... forever single. Like I needed a fucking screen to remind me of tha...

The next day, Yosuke and I met on the way to school to discuss what had happened. He said his other self had a larger penis, so he blugeoned him to death and shoved the body back into the television world. While doing so, he mentioned something about the shadow of a Yukiko-shaped girl wearing a Yukiko-shaped kimono. Baffled as to who it could be, we proceeded to our classroom, sat down, and were immediated bombarded by Chie with questions (and bits of bacons flying out of her mouth) about Yukiko's whereabouts, as if the only thing I do is stalk her from the bushes around her home between the hours of eight and nine. We figured we'd ask Kujo, or Kurama, or whatever Kuma's name is, if she was hanging around his place. He bit me, so Yosuke and I went inside to pay him another visit.

What's that? You need a doctor "bear"y badly? You're so punny!

We decided to head home and wait for the Midnight Channel to come on for some more information. What we got was a Yukiko-looking princess proudly searching for a man. Clearly, this was not the same girl, because that one wore a kimono, but it was possible that this girl might be a relative, so we agreed to go back early tomorrow and find out for ourselves.

Before heading in, Yosuke figured it would be best to remind ourselves that Adachi is nothing more than a harmless goof. He then turned his head and winked. At what, I don't know. We then met up with Chie and bought weapons at a shop conveniently located near Junes from a guy with no qualms about selling his "art" to minors. If that wasn't cause for concern, the tongues sticking out of his hands certainly were. Then again, no one seemed to question the clay bird parked outside the building, so I didn't think too far into the matter.

Now back in the TV world, our group stood at the front gate of a nondescript castle. Without hesitation, Chie charged in, hoping to rescue her friend in time. The rest of us figured it would be a better idea to prepare ourselves: Teddie provided medicine, I organized our equipment, and Yosuke logged onto Gamefaqs.com. As we made our way through the first floor, shadows continuously got in our way. Seriously, how did Chie avoid all of them? When we reached the second floor, a shadow clone of everyone's favorite kung-fu glutton blocked our path. Chie's second failed attempt to think before acting resulted in a mediocre battle with a dominatrix who turns into Samurai Celty after being defeated. I know it's not really her, but just IMAGINE the sales her appearance would help bring to any game in this already-popular franchise. A Record Breaker in profit for the series, to be sure. (yuk yuk yuk. Not funny)

Moments after obtaining her new Persona, Chie passed out. ...always a hassle with this bitch. Yosuke and I did our best to drag her home, but the sauce stains from her last ravaging at the food court (three pounds of pulled pork, twelve pieces of fried chicken, a beefsteak, and a small child who got too close during the feeding) left her clothes in a greasy state that prevented both of us from maintaining a solid grip for more than a few seconds. I suggested tucking our arms underneath her breasts and ass for better support, then we both laughed. After two hours of lugging our gassy companion halfway across Inaba, we finally reached the doorstep of the Satonaka residence. Neither of us wanted to explain to her parents what had occurred, so we left her body on the doorstep and proceeded to quietly leave before either of them could begin to ask questions. Unfortunately, Mr. Satonaka spotted us from one of the living room windows and demanded to know what had happened to his precious daughter."We were at a party. She couldn't hold her liquor." We then bowed and ran like hell. By Monday morning, Chie was fine and dandy, unlike the other sorry sacks of shit I helped throughout the year. It took days for the each of them to recover. A good night's rest outside the front door and consuming half her weight in red meat was all it took to get our hopping powerhouse back on her feet.

Up until that point, it felt like a greater force was controlling my actions. Now, I was able to go out and do something I wanted to do. I thought that, at least, but the only two people I knew were worried about Yukiko, and I couldn't really justify sitting around on my ass reading books, watching television, and going out to eat while she was still missing. Besides, Inaba's a small place. There was a strong possibility that I would run into somebody who worked at the Amagi Inn, and then I'd have to pretend like I don't know what happened, or provide a few shallow words of comfort, such as, "Don't worry... uh, you. I'm sure she's perfectly fine in that bland-looking castle crawling with monsters," and then he or she would put her or his hand on my shoulder, as if I would ever want to be touched by some nameless NPC, and respond with, "I feel a bit better now. Thank you." Cringing at the thought, I became determined to rescue Chie's femme and called for us to meet up at the food court. Chie was already there terrifying onlookers with her best Luffy impersonation. Along with the drops that I swiped from a recently black-and-blue'd bear, it was smart of me to stock up on soul tomatoes and canned refreshments, because neither is infused with beef, so Chie won't chew through my fingers to get at them prematurely.

A new addition to the TV world included a funtastic demonstration of how various Persona make babies. I found it rather enlightening to witness the passion of two beings give birth to a devil squattin' on a shitter. After two hours of continued demonstrations, I finally emerged from the blue door satisfied and in dire need of a nap. From there, Teddie brought us back to the castle of windows and curtains (but not a single fucking painting!) where Yukiko was trapped. I was a bit peeved at the apprehension I met from Teddie and Yosuke outside the gate. Kuma's sorry ass wasn't fighting, and Yosuke was the one too worried about Yukiko to do anything else. I grabbed the both of them and dragged them into the building with me. Inside, we were met with rather mediocre resistence from the shadowfolk. After coming in contact with Yuki's irritating counterpart, we were greeted by an Avenger Knight with the honorable desire of "wrecking that bitch" after disposing of us. I told him she was still underaged, then recommended checking out the persona sideshow going on back at the Velvet Room. He quickly took off without so much as a "Thank You". I got a Shuffle Time out of it, which became a Sweep Bonus, so his lack of courtsey wasn't a big deal. Finally, we caught up to Yukiko and her shadow se...

I'm not entirely sure what Yukiko was doing with her head under that dress, but I knew which Social Link I was going to work on first.

After they were done, both enjoyed a smoke, then they become one again. Chie ran over to apologize, then both of them made out. Yosuke stared at me for a few moments, then winked. That became the cue for us to leave. Overwhelmed with satisfaction, Yukiko passed out. It took quite a while for her to recover, but she wore a smile on her face the whole time she was resting.

During her recovery, I decided to go online and see what others in my position were doing.

Sigh... yeah. I think I might be done here.

THERE IS NO PART 2!